Times Quick Cryptic No 1763 by Felix

71 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1763 by Felix”

1. Didn’t get JEWELLER instantly, so I went away and did the 15×15 and then came back and got it instantly. I don’t think I’d ever heard of anyone called NESTA (and I certainly didn’t know Bob Marley was). Otherwise no difficulties. But no time since I didn’t stop the clock while I was doing the other crossword.
   1. Broadcaster, Frank Bough’s wife was called Nesta. (I know this as he was a close family friend)
      1. You see Jack, I’m not the only one who name-drops! But as sport passes you by, so perhaps has Nesta Bough (pronounced Boff for our Murcan boys).
         Sorry Merlin, it’s always good to see you!

         ‘I once had tea with Nuvalari. Lovely man – awful tea!’ Terry Thomas

         1. The only one I know of is Nesta Vipers

            Edited at 2020-12-10 12:11 pm (UTC)

         2. I once had lunch with Kimi Raikkonen. Lovely lunch. He never spoke.
2. I remembered the potato, but TUBER didn’t occur to me, and I simply biffed. 6:33.
3. Had a bear of a time today, taking 16 minutes and change.
4. 13 minutes. Hard.

   I just spotted there’s a Dickens theme going on, specifically PICK (1ac), WICK (27ac), PAPERS (1d).

   Sam {je}WELLER in 3ac.
   Alfred JINGLE (16dn).
   Nathaniel WINKLE{s} in 13ac.
   AUGUSTus Snodgrass at 17dn

   Edited at 2020-12-10 05:02 am (UTC)

   1. Wery vell spotted.
   2. Very well spotted Jackkt! Your spotting it is all the more remarkable as it was completely missed by me, despite suspecting something was there, despite recommending Dickens to you a couple of weeks ago, and despite the praise that I rained on Dickens at the time. I wonder if there is a connection, and the theme was set as a bear trap for me – or am I getting paranoid or self-indulgent? Well done too to Felix.

      Edited at 2020-12-10 09:29 am (UTC)

      1. I just realized that congrats are due to Felix today as this is his 50th Quick Cryptic.

         Rotter, tbh I only noticed the theme after you mentioned the possibility in your intro. I hadn’t looked previously because I had forgotten that they’ve recently become something of trademark of Felix’s style. According to my records 7 of his last 11 have had themes, but of course it’s possible they all did but nobody noticed the other 4. His most recent before today (#1698) also had a Dickens theme, with reference to David Copperfield

         Some may not know that Felix is the Times Crossword Editor who very occasionally contributes here as RR.

         Edited at 2020-12-10 10:54 am (UTC)

5. Rebut means disprove, not deny.
   1. Strictly true of course, but as so often it’s necessary to consider usage and context.

      Lexico (Oxford Dictionary on-line) has this as its first definition of rebut: claim or prove that (evidence or an accusation) is false. ‘Claim’ in this context means ‘deny’ I think.

      Chambers recognises the usage whilst disapproving of it:

      You will sometimes see and hear refute (or rebut) used in the simpler sense of ‘deny’, which can give rise to ambiguity; in some sentences you won’t know whether refute means reasoned proof or just emphatic denial.

      Recommendation: use refute or rebut only when argument or proof is involved; otherwise use reject or repudiate.

6. 75 minutes or so, but a good feeling having cracked them all, even if a couple biffed then reverse-engineered. FOI 3ac, LOI 22ac, COD 1d for its elegance, WOD is only part of the answer: “ingle”, which I had encountered before only in the compound “ingle-nook” as in Betjeman’s “In a Bath Teashop”.
7. I was outclassed today taking 28 minutes for what must be my slowest ever all green solve. Only four on the first pass and paused at 17m minutes while very stuck to count 11 still unsolved and the NE especially bare. Finally saw MANGO wasn’t a hidden – fell hook, line and sinker for ‘among’ – and the SW fell once I got the second U in AUGUST and could see how it worked. Even though we’ve have ‘letters’ in a similar context recently I still missed what was going on with LANDLORDS even though I’d written in LORDS. The hidden UNKEMPT stayed hidden for too long. Lots of red herrings and I fell for them all – well played Felix. On levels I found this harder than any Telegraph puzzle this week but as noted I did fall into every trap possible.

   Edited at 2020-12-10 09:57 am (UTC)

8. Very hard going today, not helped by enthusiastically banging in FORK for 1a. Not too much to complain about (other than NHO Nesta), just not on the wavelength.

   FO(correctly)I: 13a WINKLES
   LOI: 6d LANDLORDS
   COD: 27a WICK for clever clueing and witty surface

   19:44 for 3K and a Very Bad Day Indeed.

   Thanks to Rotter for help with parsing and Felix for a stiff workout

   1. I put FORK as well! Fortunately I wasn’t very sure of it, and decided that I ought to cross check by looking at 1 dn (instead of doing all the acrosses). That put me straight.
9. Some chewy stuff in here but my only major hold up was LOI JEWELLER where I lifted and separated too much. I was sure that the definition was ring and it was going to start REP. When I got to J on my alphabet the penny dropped with an almighty clang.
   As usual I was completely oblivious to the theme, but well spotted Jack.
   Finished in 12.19.
   Thanks to Rotter
10. I started very well in the NW but decelerated and almost came to a complete halt. I couldn’t see EGG ON, JEWELLER, or LANDLORDS on my first run through (or the second) and the SW held me up with TUSSOCKS and AUGUST and UNKEMPT (I failed to see the hiddens at first). I didn’t enter ALPS until I finally parsed it. I had trouble with JINGLE and my LOI WICK which took me well into SCC territory. I shared many of mendesest’s experiences with the bear traps, including MANGO.
    I finished this but, all in all, it was a disaster. Is it just me having a bad day or was this just a bit too ‘clever’ for a supposed QC? Felix certainly had fun playing with my feeble brain today but left me shaken and certainly not stirred in a nice way.
    A ‘curate’s egg’ with the good bits being eclipsed by the rest, most of which ended up on my face. Thanks to rotter for dealing valiantly with this one. John M.

    Edited at 2020-12-10 02:17 pm (UTC)

11. Top left corner in seconds then ground to a halt. Got there in the end and wondered why I had made such heavy weeather of it. Must be a wavelength thing. Some good stuff though – thanks setter and blogger
12. 17:40 to get to my LOI 17d. Then I just got stuck. The only word I could see was TUMULT. It looked like imposing JU on something. I failed to see the reverse hidden.
    Otherwise this was a testing QC and several good clues.
    David
13. Not sure NESTA clued as an anagram could plausibly be anything other than … NESTA

    As for Bob NESTA Marley, it’s also Joseph ROBINETTE Biden …

14. I too started badly but boldly with FORK, thinking a choice of F or K must be right. And ended badly taking far too long to get TUMULT out of my head to get AUGUST. In between, hard but good, but still about 24 minutes. kap
15. 20 minutes, so a bit of a challenge and corresponding feeling od smugness on completion.
    I know Nesta from my Welsh learning. ‘Mae gan Nesta Fiesta’ was a way of remembering how to say that that particular lady ( in the room during the lesson) was the owner of a particular make of car…
16. I think I fell into every one of the Red Herrings today, so posted another DNF. Also got the NW corner in about 30 seconds flat but then ground to a total halt.

    COD : TUSSOCKS

17. … and all done in an enjoyable 15 minutes. Like some others I started well on the NW corner and then found the rest harder – for me it was the NE corner that took the time, as I could not see 3A Jeweller first time round, and, having just –G -N, could not get beyond Mug (fool, face) as the first part of 5D. But that made the second part impossible, so back to the drawing board and eventually Egg on emerged and with it, finally my LOI Jeweller.

    I confess that clues like 22A Nesta are not my favourite. The world of girls’ names, and what some proud parents think their little daughter will positively thank them for as their label for life when they grow up, is virtually infinite, so having decided that 22A was not Nadia, or Naoma, or Nelda, or Nemea, or Neola, or Norma, or even Nyssa I was resigned to a guess. But with the S checker as well, and a generous clue from Felix, eventually Nesta forced its way forward and lo and behold it was correct. But I dislike having to guess random names I’ve not heard of. (Quiz to prove the point: all but one of the N-words I have listed really are girls’ names. Can you spot the one that isn’t? Answer below).

    Thanks to Rotter for the excellent blog – but for once you have not given us your time as the blogger and so standard setter!

    Answer to quiz: Nemea is a region of Greece (and the name of a fine red wine that comes from there). All the rest really are girls’ names.

    Cedric

    1. Nemea is also where an annoying lion once hung out. And somewhere out there I’m sure there’s a woman named Nemea. Or a man, for that matter.
    2. You are right, my apologies, it was outside my target range at 17 minutes!
    3. And none remotely fit the clue
18. 10 mins for me here but a few tricky clues. AUGUST I thought was well hidden. Liked UNKEMPT too. Well done Jack, didn’t notice the Dickens connection. Thank you Rotter and Felix.
19. Finished in 29 mins, but a dnf as I put “Lick” for 27ac thinking the incendiary band was a “lick of flame” – all the more annoying as it was the LOI and I had to go through the dreaded alphabet trawl.

    Enjoyed the rest of it though, including 3ac “Jeweller”, 5dn “Egg On” and 6dn “Landlords”. Not a fan of “names”, but at least 22ac “Nesta” was solvable (wasn’t that a character in Gavin and Stacey?). Was unsure about 18dn “Attack” until I realised the alternative definition and I DNK 17dn “August”, but thankfully spotted the reverse hidden word. Also, I must remember “ingle” as a fireplace.

    For a moment, I thought 12dn might end in “huts” and was one of the myriad of bomb shelters that often grace these crosswords, but luckily the answer appeared at the right moment.

    FOI – 1dn “Papers”
    LOI – 27ac dnf
    COD – 19dn “Bartok”

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2020-12-10 12:40 pm (UTC)

    1. Similar, James, but the character in G&S is Nessa, short for Vanessa I guess.
       1. Ah…you’re right – it is Nessa. Feel a bit of a plank now.
20. Hardest one this year
    1. I can only assume you’ve missed a lot of puzzles this year to reach such a sweeping conclusion. It was certainly at the harder end, but we’ve had at least two tougher ones in December alone !
       1. I haven’t missed any and can honestly say that for me this was the hardest one for a long long time!!! MM
21. Jack, you’re a genius. Didn’t spot it even though I was on full Nina alert on seeing the setter’s name!

    Two to add (assuming they aren’t added by someone else while I type this): Tracy TUPMAN (Pickwick’s third travelling companion) can be seen by joining 8 & 21dn; and the full name AUGUSTUS appears by reading round the SW corner.

    DNF on the puzzle – found it tough but after 15 had all but AUGUST and UNKEMPT – gave up on those after another 10 minutes – so infuriating to be defeated by hiddens!

    Great fun, thanks Felix and Rotter.

    Templar

22. I found this hard going and achieved about 75%. Did not know mount meant reverse so learnt something there. Never heard of tussocks. I also thought nesta was a rubbish clue and answer. Obscure names in my view is the recourse of a setter who has run out of ideas.

    Overall I am learning each day how to solve these puzzles.

    1. NB that “mount” only means “reverse” in a down clue (for obvious reasons). I missed it too! Most of us learn something most days … Completely agree with you about random Christian names, one of my pet hates. There isn’t even a Nesta in Dickens (yes I checked, I’m that sad).
       1. The word tussocks meaning grass in bundles or balls that stand up is not I think that uncommon, even if not everyone’s GK. Rather less common is a sort of grass that grows not so much in tussocks as in full wheatsheaf-like stands, up to 3 metres high. It’s called Tussac grass and is the most common form of grass in much of the Falkland Islands. As I can confirm from experience, it is very difficult to walk through a tussac grass field!

          

          Cedric

23. Well spotted Jack! Remarkable Nina from Felix.
    I also checked-out Miss TUSSOCK but to no avail.

    Also 13 minutes.

    LOI 27ac WICK was my hold-up – at BARTOK Junction South.

    FOI PICK

    SOI PAPERS

    COD 21adn MANGO

    WOD 26ac TUSSOCK

    Edited at 2020-12-10 12:53 pm (UTC)

    1. The TUS of TUSSOCKS is the TUS of AUGUSTUS
24. Very well spotted Jack. I also started steadily enough and then got bogged down. As has been mentioned, lots of blind alleys to visit. PICK was my FOI, and eventually BLACKOUTS wound up the proceedings, by which time 14:01 had elapsed. Thanks Felix and Rotter.
25. Taking 7:22.

    WICK was last in, and my favourite I think. Everything else went in smoothly, if not particularly quickly.

26. After 30 mins I had solved less than half of Felix’s clues – and most of those were the easier ones. I should have stopped and returned later, but decided to press on… I stumbled from trap to trap, inventing new types of fruit and nonchalantly ignoring real hidden answers, but occasionally seeing just enough light to think it worth carrying on. Finally staggered across the line after 67mins (!), easily my slowest finished time for years. Not so much wavelength as waveband issues today. Invariant
    1. For a while I was wondering whether the “sanan” fruit or the more delightful “mongb” were a citrus variety 😀
27. Was on the wrong tack for JEWELLER though I thought of Jeer. And missed RAREST.
    Failed on WICK too, and AUGUST though the latter should have been obvious.

    Managed NESTA , EGG ON etc TUSSOCKS made me smile.

    FOsI PICK, PAPERS, BARTOK (luckily), ALI

    Bad day, but thanks all for clarifications. Needless to say, the Nina passed me by.

28. I solved this puzzle in two sessions. I started it on my desktop but then had to go out and restart it again on my phone app. The clues that I had skimmed over in the first session proved much easier on second glance and there were plenty of ooh and ahh moments as the grid filled. The clues that deservedly pushed me outside my target 10 were the beautifully hidden UNKEMPT, WICK, LANDLORDS (fixated on the wrong meaning of letters) and MANGO which I wrote in unparsed. Well played FELIX. I don’t mind being over target when the wordplay is so clever. Needless to say I missed the NINA despite looking for one. Solving time 15-20 mins.
29. I found this very challenging with a few very obscure items (e.g. meanings of AUGUST and REBUT which are both unusual), NESTA as a girl’s name (I hate all these boy/girl’s name words), GONER. Didn’t get JEWELLER without help.
30. Probably took 12-15 minutes to complete all bar the SW corner, which proved intractable. Eventually finished in 32 minutes having entered my LOI at 17dn with a shrug. Took an age to see the anagram at 21dn, the alternative meaning of attack never occurred to me and didn’t see the hidden at 20ac until afterwards. And of course the nina completely passed me by. Thanks Rotter for providing illumination where all was darkness!

    FOI – 1ac PICK
    LOI – 17dn AUGUST
    COD – 20ac UNKEMPT

31. Very tricky. Still don’t understand what LANDLORDS has got to do with letters.
    Somewhat immobile today having just fallen down the stairs and broken two ribs. Analgesia definitely works as intended but numbs the brain also.
    Moral. Don’t rush down slippy polished wooden stairs while making phone call.
    1. Letters as in people who let property…grr
       1. Thank you. Can’t believe how my brain refused to think of the obvious!
    2. Bad luck re broken ribs. Sounds v painful.
       1. Thank you very much. Surprisingly so. Particularly when being prodded to confirm diagnosis.
32. This one was very hard (for me), with a lot of clues which required more analysis to work out what was being asked for than I was ready to give, never mind then getting the answer. Some of them smelt more like 15×15 clues than QC ones. Boo.
33. It was the .u.u.t that threw me, and the only other one was TUMULT, LOI JEWELLER which had me barking up various wrong trees. Especially annoying as my daughter is a jeweller and is on telly this evening
34. Hard, which we don’t mind, but really horrible surfaces for a lot of the clues, and some iffy ones as well – why is a wick an incendiary band? A band is a loop and not only have I never seen a looped wick, I doubt whether one would work. We probably found this the hardest of the recent run of toughies, at least in part because unlike the others we didn’t enjoy the clues.
    It seems to me that often when setters try to show how clever they are with Ninas the puzzle suffers. I tend to think of the cleverest puzzles as being the ones with the most pleasingly construction, with witty surfaces and subtle misdirection, not the ones who shoehorn something else in.
    1. not only have I never seen a looped wick, I doubt whether one would work.

       Agas (the stoves, not the officials) have looped wicks 🙂

35. A big fat DNF today. Gave up after 76 minutes with five still to get, my worst performance for as long as I can remember. Missed the necessary meanings of spring, letters, scoff and fit, and the hidden indicators in 17d and 20a. I did like 21d but either I was just not with it today, or this was just too difficult. But thanks anyway Felix, and Rotter of course.
36. I do this on the tablet version and had ‘choice weapon’ as the clue for 1AC. My husband had the paper version and the clue was ‘choice digging tool’. I’m surprised no-one else has commented on this?
    1. I understand the clue was revised and you had the earlier version which in my opinion didn’t work as I don’t see ‘weapon’ as ‘pick’.
37. I noted that the the word ‘digging’ appeared quite superfluous to the clue on my print-out copy and it looks like Felix edited it out himself, later.
38. Thanks to this blog I can now solve the QC in 15-25 mins. I’ve done so 3x this week. Today I managed 30%. Not wavelength. Today’s was just flipping difficult.
    My advice is set yourself a time limit and then give up. In my case it’s 30. The many clues I didn’t get today I would never have got. Johnny
39. ….but, as usual, the theme was wasted on me. Apart from trying (twice) to start my LOI with “rep”, I scraped inside my target.

    FOI PICK
    LOI JEWELLER
    COD REBUT
    TIME 4:58

40. Another ‘harder’ setter IMHO. Managed to struggle through in an hour and a half or so! Only 2A’s and 4D’s on first pass… FOI 15a Ajar; LOI 3a Jeweller where I was, like others, misled by separating the opening two words. COD either 20a Unkempt/26a Tussocks or 4d Elbows. Pleased to have finished ok so must say thanks for the workout to Felix, and to Rotter for a fine blog.
41. Got stuck with about 5 last clues. Got landlords eventually but still don’t understand why letters is a definition for landlords – anyone help?
    1. A landlord is someone who lets property.
42. Yes, we’re a day late and sadly it was a definite DNF for us. We didn’t record a time as we ended up doing it in 2 sessions. We simply weren’t on the same wavelength as Felix – I think this was our worst performance in a very long time 🙁. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow….

    FOI: pick
    LOI: august

    Thanks to Rotter and Felix

43. I found this hard going and achieved about 75%. Did not know mount meant reverse so learnt something there. Never heard of tussocks. I also thought nesta was a rubbish clue and answer. Obscure names in my view is the recourse of a setter who has run out of ideas.

    Overall I am learning each day how to solve these puzzles.

44. Sorry, not obvious to me how mount implies reverse – can you explain for the dimwitted?…

Comments are closed.